The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of Petunia plant originated from crossing of a wild type Petunia plant called ‘NW-4’ as the female parent and a seedling of Petunia plant called ‘Dbl.BV’ as the male parent.
The Petunia is a very popular plant that is used for flower bedding and potting in the summer season. There are only a few Petunia varieties known to the inventors which do not have an upright growth habit and which have a high resistance to rain, heat, and disease. These petunia plants, such as the Revolution series cultivars ‘Revolution Purplepink’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 6,915), ‘Revolution Brilliantpink’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 6,914), ‘Revolution Brilliantpink-mini’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 6,899), and ‘Revolution Bluevein’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 9,322) are decumbent type plants having long stems, a lower plant height, abundant branching, and a high resistance to heat, rain and disease. However, there are only a few Petunia varieties having a great profusion of small size flowers, pale purple color with vein patterned flower petals and a high resistance to rain, heat, and disease known to the inventors. Accordingly, this invention was aimed at obtaining a new variety having purplish white colored petals with vivid violet vein, together with the above features.
The female parent ‘NW-4’ (unpatented) used in the crossing that created ‘Sunbabuve’ is a wild type Petunia plant native to Brazil, having a decumbent habit with long stems and many branches. The leaf is very small without petiole. It has very small single flowers, the petals having yellowish white (R.H.S. 155B) with strong purplish pink (R.H.S. 84A) vein.
The male parent ‘Dbl.BV’ (non-patented) used in the crossing that created ‘Sunbabuve’ is a strain of our breeding lines ‘Dbl.BV’ has an erect growth habit with many branches and large double flowers. The petals have a violet blue (R.H.S. N89A) color without vein.
In April 1998, crossing of ‘NW-4’ as the female parent and ‘Dbl.BV’ as the pollen parent was conducted at Yokaichi-shi, Shiga-ken, Japan. In January 1999, 120 seedlings were obtained from that crossing. These seedlings were grown in pots in glasshouses and were evaluated. One seedling was selected in view of its decumbent growth habit, flower size and color. That seedling was propagated by cuttings from July 1999, and was the subject of a trial carried out by flower potting and bedding from April 2000. The botanical characteristics of that plant were then examined, using similar varieties ‘Revolution Bluevein’ and ‘Revolution violet-mini’ (unpatented) for comparison. As a result, it was concluded that this Petunia plant is distinguishable from any other variety, whose existence is known to us, and is uniform and stable in its characteristics. Then the new variety of Petunia plant was named ‘Sunbabuve’.
In the following description, the color-cording is in accordance with The R.H.S. Colour Chart.